Summary of tense forms

To start off today’s article, here is the translation into English of last week’s little bit of Spanish.

Today has been a normal working day for me, with my classes in Torrevieja. I have a lot of students now, especially in the second group of the day. After the final class I have to gather all my things and drive towards my home in San Pedro.

Today I have called into the supermarket to buy oranges and bread, and also to the photocopy shop. I have found my two daughters at home, one watching the TV and the other one studying for an exam. This isn’t the most usual situation. Many times they are out doing sport or walking with their friends. Well, it’s quite late now and I am still working. In a minute I’m going to switch of this cursed computer and relax a little before going to sleep. What a life I lead!

Before we move onto a new topic, we are going to summarize the three verb forms we have been studying over a period of months. If you remember, right back at the beginning we looked at a way of referring to our future intentions by using ‘voy a’ (I’m going to), which changes to ‘vas a’ (you’re going to), ‘va a’ (he or she is going to), ‘vamos a’ (we’re going to) ‘vais a’ (you’re going to – plural form) and ‘van a’ (they’re going to). We saw that after these we put the main verb of the sentence into the infinitive form – giving us, for example ‘Voy a comer’ (I’m going to eat) or ‘Vas a aprender’ (you are going to learn).

Then later we looked at the ‘present action’ tense, which expresses activities taking place at the present moment. This is made up by using the verb ‘estar’ in the appropriate form and the main verb in what we call the ‘gerund’ or ‘present participle’. That gives us, for example ‘Estoy comiendo’ (I am eating), ‘estás aprendiendo’ (you are learning).

Finally, we have been looking at the ‘recent past’ tense that expresses something in the past, which is still connected in some way to the present. This is formed with the verb ‘haber’ plus the ‘past participle’. ‘He comido’ (I have eaten), ‘Has aprendido’ (you have learnt).

We can therefore put these ideas together to form a ‘time line’ as follows.

Voy a comer. Estoy comiendo. He comido.

(I’m going to eat) (I’m eating) (I have eaten)

Vas a aprender. aprendiendo. Has aprendido.

(You’re going to learn) (You are learning) (You have learnt)

You can now have hours of fun doing the same thing with as many verbs as you wish, and changing the person to he, she, we, they etc.

I think it is an effective way of revising what we have learnt, reminding ourselves which form is which and how it is made up, and also the time sequencing of past, present and future.

Voy a terminar este artículo. Estoy terminando este artículo. He terminado este artículo. Hasta luego.